It is often difficult to discern the truth when the concerned parties hold opposing points of view. Who is right and who is wrong on the latest conflict in the Israeli versus Palestine saga? Israel had reason to take action against the increasing threat of rocket attacks from Gaza. The civilian toll in Gaza seems to be excessive, even after discounting the acknowledged unfortunate (but apparently inevitable: due to Hamas militant operational protocols) errors.
Personally after viewing the situation from afar for a couple of years my opinion is that Israel is in general guilty of aggression. Democracy elected Hamas a couple of years back. Politics pressured them (and rightfully so I would argue) into boiling over and taking over Gaza (at the expense of the West Bank). Now democracy has elected a right-wing government in Israel, and the new foreign minister shows signs of rhetoric leaning towards the current Iranian president Armadinejad’s warped nuances.
Admittedly here it should be pointed out that Armedinejad was condemned without trial for his latest outburst at a United Nations convention against racism. This lack of trial is itself the essential hidden quality of a racist.
In my interpretation of what Armadinejad said, the key launching pad for his tirade against Israel was the military aggression of the newly formed post World War II Israeli state. My reading of the historical situation is clear and uncomplicated. The colonial powers in the region (primarily Britain) gave a growing movement of Jews a sovereign state. Shortly afterwards Israel launched a military campaign that took by force more land from the Palestinian people. Invasion of another country to appropriate its lands is many things, not least of all racist.
However personally I think Armadinejad shows significant aberration of thought processes, and is therefore not just a little neurotic, but actually quiet clearly insane. Though this is perhaps not the most preferential quality of an Iranian president, the final factor in the equation is something very little discussed. Israel has a significant stockpile of nuclear weapons. This issue needs to be dealt with if there is any hope of achieving peace in the Middle-East.
I congratulate George Bush (junior) for at least one thing – being the expounder of the phrase Axis of Evil. (Oh and also for being the first Western power to take a stand on Tibet…really this is a remarkable feat and should never be forgotten.) North Korea and Iran represent serious present and future concern. However I take aim at this focus, and the sidewards focus on Russia. The situation with Chinese spying and financial investments in key strategic foreign interests has been disputed as being the ancient mythological yellow-peril syndrome. However what about the fact that the key financial backer for the Burmese military junta and the Sudanese government is China. Ask the millions of people that have either been raped, tortured, or slaughtered at the hands of brutal state actors propped up by the Chinese Communist Party.
Since we are looking at brutal military regimes what about the situation in Fiji? Fiji’s military leader took control of the country in a bloodless coup in 2006. The situation in Fiji has been declining ever since. The military leader appoints a president who appoints the military leader as the prime-minister. The media is controlled like a vice and all court documents relating the coup have been shredded. As foreign powers are trying to assert pressure to bring back democracy and the rule of law, the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party have been cultivating closer financial and personal ties with the self-appointed leaders of a military dictatorship. The Chinese government forges ties with the oppressive evil of this world.
To call the Dalai Lama evil is an absurdity that is evident to all the major powers of the world. The French president Sarkozy knew this when he went against Chinese pressure and met the Dalai Lama. Unfortunately at the latest G-20 meeting the Western powers needed some of China’s plundered wealth, and hence an intimate encounter between the French and Chinese heads of state finished with Nicolas Sarkozy stating that very clearly Tibet was a part of China. The proposition that the invasion of Tibet, the slaughter of its people and its culture and religion, was an act of surf liberation is in the realms of the seriously delusional. A reading of the Tibetan society shows that it had harshness and beauty that paralleled its natural rugged surrounds. However as a society it was not one that oppressed and tortured its people to maintain power. A look at the democratic changes in a near neighbour (Bhutan, not to mention India) shows that Tibet also was a country that could also change for the better through internal reform, not Chinese annihilation.
So to those who say that the yellow-peril is an ancient myth I say to them just for a day step in the place of a person from Darfur, Burma, or Tibet. Why not spend tomorrow in fear of the Junjaweed; or how about hanging out getting tortured in a Burmese or Tibetan jail? Tomorrow there will be thousands of people languishing in severe torment through outrageous acts of violence against innocent victims at the hands of those who have life through the Chinese government.
While I am on the subject of brutality, what about the Taliban? All those great moral processions of protestors that oppose action against the Taliban are uninformed of the roots of their mis-virtue. To act in the name of good out of emotion rather than understanding is the very crime of the Taliban. The situation in the north-west of Pakistan makes this evident. Many people view this war (as with the war in Iraq) as a war of America versus Islam, or the West versus Allah. Aside from the virtue of toppling Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq was primarily one between radical elements of different Islamic religious factions – even today it is the case (car bombs still killing people by the hundreds).
The north-west of Pakistan is home to semi-autonomous regions. In small pockets of mountainous terrain tribes, tribal chiefs, and socio-cultural traditions are the foundation of a unique way of life. The Taliban move into these tribal regions, kill or abduct the tribal chiefs, slaughter any adhoc tribal army that tries to prevent their presence, and then introduces a brutal rule of law that is somehow in tune with God. After the government of Pakistan gave the Taliban and its affiliates the Swat Valley as there playground – in exchange for peace – shortly afterwards groups of militants with high-powered weapons started taking over a region immediately to the south (a region home to many hundreds of thousands of people). They have come to within 100 kilometres of the Pakistan capital Islamabad. The key point here is that in their movements they simply take over by force an already existing functioning civil society. They do this via abduction, murder, and essentially, fear. The Taliban oppress its own people through military force. As with Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the warring in Pakistan, is internal in nature. It is Islam versus Allah, or Allah versus Islam. Actually it is the creative against the destructive, good versus evil, God or Allah versus all that is ugly in humanity.
I note here that the Taliban refers to the umbrella of violent, radical elements, and so does not refer to authentic religious people who call themselves Taliban. The same to is for the term China. China’s general population lives at the whim and oftentimes mercy of its one-party political machine. It is not just the Burmese dissidents, the Tibetan people, or Darfurians that suffer; it is also all the Chinese human rights activists, the deceased Tiananment Square visionaries, the Chinese children that died in poorly built schools, the hundreds of thousands of Chinese babies sickened (and worse) by tainted milk, and the world over that consumes poor quality fast-food and other fast-products.
In my opinion China needs a new religiousness. Buddhism is a religion with deep roots in China, not Christianity. Its people need a new flowering of the ancient buddhist religion to feed its starving soul.
Personally after viewing the situation from afar for a couple of years my opinion is that Israel is in general guilty of aggression. Democracy elected Hamas a couple of years back. Politics pressured them (and rightfully so I would argue) into boiling over and taking over Gaza (at the expense of the West Bank). Now democracy has elected a right-wing government in Israel, and the new foreign minister shows signs of rhetoric leaning towards the current Iranian president Armadinejad’s warped nuances.
Admittedly here it should be pointed out that Armedinejad was condemned without trial for his latest outburst at a United Nations convention against racism. This lack of trial is itself the essential hidden quality of a racist.
In my interpretation of what Armadinejad said, the key launching pad for his tirade against Israel was the military aggression of the newly formed post World War II Israeli state. My reading of the historical situation is clear and uncomplicated. The colonial powers in the region (primarily Britain) gave a growing movement of Jews a sovereign state. Shortly afterwards Israel launched a military campaign that took by force more land from the Palestinian people. Invasion of another country to appropriate its lands is many things, not least of all racist.
However personally I think Armadinejad shows significant aberration of thought processes, and is therefore not just a little neurotic, but actually quiet clearly insane. Though this is perhaps not the most preferential quality of an Iranian president, the final factor in the equation is something very little discussed. Israel has a significant stockpile of nuclear weapons. This issue needs to be dealt with if there is any hope of achieving peace in the Middle-East.
I congratulate George Bush (junior) for at least one thing – being the expounder of the phrase Axis of Evil. (Oh and also for being the first Western power to take a stand on Tibet…really this is a remarkable feat and should never be forgotten.) North Korea and Iran represent serious present and future concern. However I take aim at this focus, and the sidewards focus on Russia. The situation with Chinese spying and financial investments in key strategic foreign interests has been disputed as being the ancient mythological yellow-peril syndrome. However what about the fact that the key financial backer for the Burmese military junta and the Sudanese government is China. Ask the millions of people that have either been raped, tortured, or slaughtered at the hands of brutal state actors propped up by the Chinese Communist Party.
Since we are looking at brutal military regimes what about the situation in Fiji? Fiji’s military leader took control of the country in a bloodless coup in 2006. The situation in Fiji has been declining ever since. The military leader appoints a president who appoints the military leader as the prime-minister. The media is controlled like a vice and all court documents relating the coup have been shredded. As foreign powers are trying to assert pressure to bring back democracy and the rule of law, the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party have been cultivating closer financial and personal ties with the self-appointed leaders of a military dictatorship. The Chinese government forges ties with the oppressive evil of this world.
To call the Dalai Lama evil is an absurdity that is evident to all the major powers of the world. The French president Sarkozy knew this when he went against Chinese pressure and met the Dalai Lama. Unfortunately at the latest G-20 meeting the Western powers needed some of China’s plundered wealth, and hence an intimate encounter between the French and Chinese heads of state finished with Nicolas Sarkozy stating that very clearly Tibet was a part of China. The proposition that the invasion of Tibet, the slaughter of its people and its culture and religion, was an act of surf liberation is in the realms of the seriously delusional. A reading of the Tibetan society shows that it had harshness and beauty that paralleled its natural rugged surrounds. However as a society it was not one that oppressed and tortured its people to maintain power. A look at the democratic changes in a near neighbour (Bhutan, not to mention India) shows that Tibet also was a country that could also change for the better through internal reform, not Chinese annihilation.
So to those who say that the yellow-peril is an ancient myth I say to them just for a day step in the place of a person from Darfur, Burma, or Tibet. Why not spend tomorrow in fear of the Junjaweed; or how about hanging out getting tortured in a Burmese or Tibetan jail? Tomorrow there will be thousands of people languishing in severe torment through outrageous acts of violence against innocent victims at the hands of those who have life through the Chinese government.
While I am on the subject of brutality, what about the Taliban? All those great moral processions of protestors that oppose action against the Taliban are uninformed of the roots of their mis-virtue. To act in the name of good out of emotion rather than understanding is the very crime of the Taliban. The situation in the north-west of Pakistan makes this evident. Many people view this war (as with the war in Iraq) as a war of America versus Islam, or the West versus Allah. Aside from the virtue of toppling Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq was primarily one between radical elements of different Islamic religious factions – even today it is the case (car bombs still killing people by the hundreds).
The north-west of Pakistan is home to semi-autonomous regions. In small pockets of mountainous terrain tribes, tribal chiefs, and socio-cultural traditions are the foundation of a unique way of life. The Taliban move into these tribal regions, kill or abduct the tribal chiefs, slaughter any adhoc tribal army that tries to prevent their presence, and then introduces a brutal rule of law that is somehow in tune with God. After the government of Pakistan gave the Taliban and its affiliates the Swat Valley as there playground – in exchange for peace – shortly afterwards groups of militants with high-powered weapons started taking over a region immediately to the south (a region home to many hundreds of thousands of people). They have come to within 100 kilometres of the Pakistan capital Islamabad. The key point here is that in their movements they simply take over by force an already existing functioning civil society. They do this via abduction, murder, and essentially, fear. The Taliban oppress its own people through military force. As with Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the warring in Pakistan, is internal in nature. It is Islam versus Allah, or Allah versus Islam. Actually it is the creative against the destructive, good versus evil, God or Allah versus all that is ugly in humanity.
I note here that the Taliban refers to the umbrella of violent, radical elements, and so does not refer to authentic religious people who call themselves Taliban. The same to is for the term China. China’s general population lives at the whim and oftentimes mercy of its one-party political machine. It is not just the Burmese dissidents, the Tibetan people, or Darfurians that suffer; it is also all the Chinese human rights activists, the deceased Tiananment Square visionaries, the Chinese children that died in poorly built schools, the hundreds of thousands of Chinese babies sickened (and worse) by tainted milk, and the world over that consumes poor quality fast-food and other fast-products.
In my opinion China needs a new religiousness. Buddhism is a religion with deep roots in China, not Christianity. Its people need a new flowering of the ancient buddhist religion to feed its starving soul.
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